1 5
2 At Aleppo I found many Germans among the numerous Euro-
3 peans, and on that account would willingly have practised there
4 for some time. Unhappily I fell sick on the road, as between
5 Adana and Alexandretta I had to cross an unhealthy, low and
6 marshy country, where malaria and marsh-fever were prevalent.
7 In consequence I was attacked with a disorder called sub-acute
8 inflammation in the spleen, which afterwards turned into an ob-
9 stinate quartan ague, of which I got cured only when I had left
10 Aleppo ; and that, I suppose, was the reason why I could not get
11 an extensive medical practice. A physician (was the saying) who
12 is not able to cure himself, can never cure others.
13 After a two months’ stay on the Syrian coast, during which
14 time I enjoyed the best health, I tried to get back again to
15 Aleppo; but at the last station before reaching Aleppo I caught
16 the fever, on the same spot where it left me, and curious enough
17 I found, in my journal, it happened on the same day it would
18 have befallen me had I not left Aleppo at all. Thus it continued
19 to be my constant companion during all my stay there; but as
20 soon as I took my leave of that place, it deserted me, without
21 having been expelled by any remedy. I had full ten months to
22 suffer by that tiresome guest. The experience I had myself,
23 agrees with that sentence, “ Febris autumnalis est longa non
24 lethalis .” During these ten months I got but few cessations of my
25 illness, and then only at short intervals. One may infer from
26 this, that obstinate diseases, defying every medical assistance, can
27 only be cured by travelling, I mean to say (change of air) by
28 removing from the country where the disease is caught.
29 Subsequently I had the opportunity of effecting several cures
30 in Tripoli — where these marshy fevers are endemical — with a
31 compound mentioned in the second volume of my work, contain-
32 ing arsenic and bitter almonds (prussic acid) in minute doses,
33 which was eminently efficacious where sulphate of quinine failed.
34 I quitted Aleppo before the fatal catastrophe of the earth-
35 quake, which caused so many diasters; the village called Jiser-
36 shol, on the river (betwern Latachia and Aleppo), was entirely
37 destroyed. Following the Syrian coast, I crossed Latachia, Tri-